


Uncle Bucky

by littleblackfox



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes and Luis are related, Gen, Human Jukebox, fite me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 14:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18523489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackfox/pseuds/littleblackfox
Summary: Are we going to talk about this...





	Uncle Bucky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [krycekasks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/krycekasks/gifts).



> Fic based on my tumblr post [Are We Going to Talk About This](http://thelittleblackfox.tumblr.com/post/178485754695/so-are-we-going-to-talk-about-this) a very late birthday gift for mi amiga, the wonderful Krycek-asks.  
> Thank you to [Pan](https://twitter.com/panacea_knits) for their beta reading skills. Really, I would be incomprehensible without them!

Scott drives over a pothole, jolting everyone piled up in the van alongside him. Bucky makes a grab for the cake box in his lap, the contents shifting about inside.  
“Sorry!” Scott gives them a wide smile, clinging to the steering wheel like his life depends on it.  
“Just watch the road, Scott,” Steve says quietly, and Bucky would slump in his seat but it’s not exactly the easiest thing to do.  
“Yessir, cap - uh - Mr cap-”  
“Steve,” Steve reminds him, and Scott falls silent, frowning at the road ahead.  
Bucky stares ahead, having little alternative, squashed between Steve and Scott. Steve, with his serumed bulk and Scott with his sticking-out elbows, yanking on the wheel when he sees the turn a second too late. Bucky cradles the cake box to his chest and hopes that it will survive the journey.  
_Bring something_ , Scott’s buddy had said. _Think of it like a pot-luck_.  
Bucky knows how to kill a man sixteen different ways unarmed. He knows how to commandeer a submarine, pilot a helicopter and, though he hasn’t tried it, he’s pretty sure he could work his way around the ISS. But cooking? Cooking is something he knows precisely jack shit about. Before… Before the war and all the shit that happened, before Steve got big and Bucky got brainwashed and… and all the other stuff, Bucky had never cooked. Hell, they didn’t even have an stove in their little apartment, they ate at the laundromat.  
The automats are gone, now there’s restaurants and food trucks and people eating while walking down the street. Hell, people ate in the movie theaters. Not just popcorn and hot dogs, if you shelled out enough they’d bring you dinner right where you were sat.  
Bucky doesn’t know how to cook, but his Momma did, and he just about remembered her recipe for vinegar cake. The damn thing sits in his lap, weighing about half a ton. He must have put at least a pound of grated apples in there alone, and Steve had suggested they pick up something from an actual bakery, but Bucky wouldn’t hear of it. So here he is in a beat-up old van chicaning around the streets of San Francisco on the way to some cook-out hosted by Scott’s buddy.  
Bucky drums his fingers on the box. _What if they hate it?_

“Here it is!” Scott yells, breathless and relieved, and pulls up onto the sidewalk.  
Steve peers out of the side window, dumb blond face pressed to the glass. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?”  
Outside the window are dull brick buildings with graffiti on the walls, and high steel fences. It’s not dirty, there’s no trash on the street, but the place looks hard-worn, like it has lived a long, fractious life but is still standing proud.  
Bucky likes it immediately.  
He has never been to any of the big parties Stark throws, though Steve always feels obliged to attend. It’s not for lack of invite, or even the crowds, Bucky can manage the crowds fine.  
It’s the kind of crowd he has issues with, rubbing shoulders with the kind of rich fuckers who have a finger in every nasty pie out there. Clothing manufacturers who shrug it off when Bangladeshi factories collapse. TV executives who crush any hint of queer representation. Car manufacturers who have never handled a wrench in their lives and have factories poisoning the water supplies. All these bastards in their thousand dollar suits and not a drop of blood has touched their hands, but they’re swimming in it.  
So yeah, Bucky knows a monster when he sees one. He sees one in the mirror every damn day, but at least he doesn’t hide it. It’s there in his eyes and the silver where there should be skin.  
“Here we are,” Scott says brightly, grabbing his tupperware box of pasta salad from behind the seats and cracking open the door.

Something is burning. Bucky can smell it as he climbs out of the van, cake tucked under his arm. It’s sweet, fragrant, woodsmoke and spices and the unmistakable char of beef. His mouth waters in a way it doesn’t with the smell of pork. His stomach rumbles, it doesn’t roil like when he catches a whiff of burning hair.  
“This way,” Scott says, walking over to one of the gates and lifting up the padlock holding it closed. He thumbs the little drum of numbers into the right order and pops the lock, pulling the gate open.  
“Come on in, everyone’s dying to meet you.”  
Bucky gives Steve a hopeful look, and follows Scott through the gate. Steve takes the rear and closes the gate after them, slipping the padlock in place and snapping it shut before giving the drum a flick with his thumb. He could crush it in his fist, could rip through the bars like they were tin, but he is delicate, aware of his own strength and how fragile the world around him can be.  
They walk down an alleyway, the smell of smoke and char getting stronger with every step. With it comes music, something modern and percussive that Bucky doesn’t quite understand yet, and the sound of laughter. They reach a backyard, crammed full of people holding paper plates and drinking bottles of beer. Over to one side is a large steel barbeque, filled with burning wood. Someone holds court over it, beer in one hand and set of tongs in the other, chatting to the person manning a table covered with bowls and tubs and trays of food.

Before Bucky can start worrying about how bad an idea it was to bring a fucking cake to a barbeque, and he should have done like Steve and brought some slaw, someone comes barrelling over to them, waving a glass of white wine.  
“Scotty!” he yells, and gives Scott a one-armed hug. “Just in time, man!”  
Scott claps him on the back and turns him towards Steve, who has instinctively sidled closer to Bucky, as if he could shield him from the world.  
“This is Steve, you might also know him as Captain America,” Scott says proudly, and the guy lets go of Scott long enough to shake his hand.  
“Pleased to meet you, bro,” he says, giving Steve’s hand a quick bounce up and down before letting go. “I’m Luis, this here is-”  
“And this is Sergeant James Barnes,” Scott interrupts.  
“Bucky,” Bucky says quickly. He hasn’t been a sergeant for a long, long time, and the title doesn’t sit too well with him these days.  
Luis’ face does something unexpected, his permanent smile somehow ratcheting up to a beaming that could outmatch the sun.  
“Oh DUDE! I am so pumped to meet you at last!” He launches himself at Bucky, who manages to shove the cake at Steve before 5’ 7” of enthusiastic Chicano slams into him.

Bucky stumbles back a few steps. Ordinarily he could (and has) stop an SUV with a well-timed punch, but the little guy is solid. More than that, he’s _hugging_ Bucky, and that’s… well that’s new. No one hugs the Winter Soldier.  
“Mama is gonna be so thrilled.” Luis’ voice is muffled against Bucky’s jacket, and he doesn’t quite catch anything else he says until Luis wrenches himself clear, hands on Bucky’s waist. “Oh, hey, can I get a picture? Just a quick one?” Luis doesn’t wait for an answer, rummaging in his pocket for his phone and setting it to selfie mode. “I gotta send it to the familia Whatsapp. You got one of those?” Bucky shakes his head. “No worries, my man, we’ll get you all set up. Now say queso!”  
Luis holds up the phone, the screen displaying his wide grin and Bucky’s bemused frown. In the background Steve is chewing his lip, looking about ready to grab the camera and crush it to powder.  
“Scott, who the hell-”  
Luis taps the phone, and there is a loud, artificial sounding click. “Perfect!” he announces, looking at the picture and tapping at his screen. “I swear, they gonna lose their shit.” He glances over at Steve. “Excuse my language, sir. I mean we been looking all over, cousin Ernesto got a restraining order from-”  
“It’s fine,” Steve says, waving his hand.

Luis’ phone chimes, low and oddly serene. He grins, shoving it in his pocket as it keeps making the same little sound over and over again.  
“Seriously, Scott,” Bucky hisses. “Where did you find this guy?”  
“Aw shit,” Luis takes Bucky by the arm and leads him towards the party, Scott and Steve following. “I’m just a little excited, you know? I mean I was weaned on those Howlies stories. Abuelo Pedro used to tell them, you know what he’s like.”  
“Who?” Bucky says without thinking, as a bottle of beer, at least he thinks it’s beer, is pulled out of a tub of ice and shoved into his hand. It’s cold and he’s a little overwhelmed, so it seems only fair to drink some. Behind him Scott is passing a beer to Steve before grabbing a soda for himself.  
“You speak Spanish, right?” Luis waves to someone across the garden, and points emphatically to Bucky while they wave their arms. “We can take care of that if you don’t, set you up with that little green owl an’ shit.”  
Bucky speaks thirteen languages. Some of them make his eyes itch and his heart pound when he hears them, but Spanish is not one of them. “I speak Spanish.”  
“Great!” Luis slaps him on the chest. “Because kids these days, I tell ya, man.” He barely catches his breath before gesturing for Scott’s tupperware. “Hey Scotty, did you bring that potato salad? Like, with the raisins and stuff?”  
“Pasta.” Scott holds up the tub and gives it a soggy-sounding shake.  
“Nice!” Luis points to the already full table and Scott sets it down with all the other food. “What you bring us, Stevie?”  
Steve cracks open his own tub, revealing a slaw of red cabbage and onion. He’d spent half the night on Epicurious.com searching for a recipe.  
“Niiiice.” Luis points to the table.  
“I brought vinegar cake,” Bucky says, pointing to the box Steve is still holding. “It sounds bad, but-”  
“Oh woah!” Luis goes rushing over to open the box, and ducks his head in, breathing in the aroma of apple and spices. “We’d better take this inside.” He closes the lid and yanks the box out of Steve’s hands. “We ain’t had vinegar cake in so long, man. Everybody is gonna freak.”  
“Sorry,” Scott says as Luis tucks the box under his arm and goes back to guiding Bucky across the yard. “Did you say vinegar? Cake?”  
“When we were kids back in Brooklyn, eggs and so on weren’t always available,” Steve explains. “But that didn’t stop Winifred Barnes from making the best apple cake in New York.”  
“It wasn’t that great,” Bucky mutters, self conscious.  
“Well, I thought it was good,” Steve murmurs fondly. 

Bucky takes a sip of his beer, casing out his surroundings while Luis chatters on about the difference between barbeque and barbacoa, and points to the chickens smeared with vivid orange paste lying on the grill while people cast curious glances their way.  
“So who is this Pedro guy?” Scott asks when Luis pauses for breath.  
“Abuelo Pedro?” Luis elbows Bucky with a grin. When Bucky doesn’t grin back his smile drops. “Oh shit, man! You don’t know about Abuelito, of course you don’t!”  
Luis steers them all away from the food, and Steve casts a longing look at the meat charring on the grill.  
“So my Abuelito Pedro was a soldier in the war, right? He was legit, I swear, like there was half a million Latino soldiers in WW2, an’ you don’t see that in the movies, right? But we been fighting for the US in every war from the Revolution to Afghanistan, you feel me?”  
Bucky nods along. He has a vague recollection of knowing some, maybe in the 107th.  
“So Abuelo Pedro, he signed up and got sent off for basic training an’ shit. Now it was colder than a well-digger’s ass in those barracks, an’ one morning they’re called out for, like, jumping jacks or whatever. So they waitin’ in formation and Abuelito’s freezing, so he sticks his hands in his pockets, tryin’ to warm up. The Drill Sergeant comes storming over all ‘American soldiers stand to attention!’ and ‘American soldiers never keep their hands in their pockets!’ an’ all that.” Luis mimes a mean-looking Drill Sergeant, all puffed up and belligerent. “Well, Abuelito ain’t never been called an American before. Folks called him a bunch of stuff, and definitely not American, so that kinda left an impression on the guy.”

Luis looks at Bucky expectantly. He glances at Steve, who looks like he’s struggling to keep up, and Scott, who looks far too relaxed about it all.  
“Is there a point to this?” Bucka asks warily, and Luis bounces up onto the balls of his feet.  
“I’m getting to it, I’m getting to it!” He stops to wave at someone standing by the door of the house the yard leads to, who holds up a bottle of red wine. Luis shakes his head, leading Bucky over. “Hey, did you watch the movie I told Scotty to tell Stevie to tell you about?”  
It takes Bucky a second to catch on. “The… one with the dead kid and the guitar?”  
“Yeah!” Luis nods vigorously. “That’s the one, though the kid ain’t really dead, he just-”  
“We watched it,” Bucky says before Luis can vanish down tangent street and onto whatthefuck boulevard. “We used to watch cartoons before the war, though Steve likes the new stuff, The Little Mermaid and so on.”  
“I like the songs,” Steve admits, which gets Scott talking to him about his kid Cassie's favourites.  
“Aw, yeah. Those are good too.” Luis walks into the house, putting the cake in the kitchen and dodging around the people standing around with their drinks. Several of them say hi to Bucky, calling him _Uncle Buck_ , and he nods awkwardly. “Hey, you like John Candy? Well, get used to it because you gonna see a lot of them. Can’t argue with a name like that, right?”  
Someone waves to Luis and he leads Bucky over with him, asking quietly about someone or other - _ella esta despierta_ \- before moving deeper into the house. Bucky looks behind him, but Scott and Steve are nowhere to be seen, still outside and talking about cartoons.

“Upstairs,” Luis announces. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s still a firecracker, she just needs a little rest now and then. She’ll be out in a bit, but I figured you guys could use a little time to catch up, right?”  
Bucky frowns, not understanding, but follows Luis up the stairs. There is no malice in the guy, and even if there were, there is nothing threatening about this place. It is full of life, photos of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren hanging on the walls, signs of a life lived to the full.  
“So anyways,” Luis carries on, clomping up each step. “Abuelo was shipped out and ended up kicking heels and parts we ain’t gonna mention with this spitfire WAC from New York.” He pauses to catch his breath on the landing before tackling the next flight of stairs. “He was crazy for her, you know what I’m saying? But figured there was no chance of making things legit, what with him being Mexican an’ her being, like, the daughter of well-to-do types, like they were the first folks on their street to get a car, that kind of thing. So her daddy was pretty clear on that.”  
Bucky nods, smile twisting his lip. The Barnes had been the first family in their neighbourhood to get a car, and George Barnes drove it up and down the street, waving his hat out the window. He was lucky he didn’t crash.  
Luis stops at the top of the stairs, shaking his head. “I keep tellin’ her. ‘Move your bed downstairs, Abuela’, but she won’t have it. She likes the view.” He gestures down the hall. “Last one on the right.”

Bucky stares at him for a good minute, the kind of stare that has hardened soldiers spilling every bad thing they did since the age of 9. But Luis just grins.  
“So that was that, you’d think,” he says, pushing past Bucky and heading down the hall. “But then her brother got killed in action. Died a hero, like they gave him every posthumous medal going an’ invented a couple of new ones.” Luis pauses at the last door on the right. “So Abuela Becca went fuck it, life’s too short, and ran off with him to California. They went back when Abuelita Maria was born, patched things up.” Luis raises a knuckle to the door and taps softly. “Abuela always said I took after her brother, because he was forever knee-deep in trouble.”  
A soft voice calls for them to come in, Brooklyn wrapped around every vowel, and Bucky’s heart skips a beat.  
Luis pushes open the door. “Hola, Mama Becca. I brought you a visitor.”


End file.
